Photography
had become "the refuge of failed painters with too little talent"

"I
am convinced that the badly applied advances of photography, like all
purely material progress for that matter, have greatly contributed to
the impoverishment of French artistic genius."

"From that moment onwards, our loathsome society rushed, like Narcissus, to contemplate its trivial image on a metallic plate. A form of lunacy, an extraordinary fantaicism took hold of these new sun-worshippers."

Nadar, Portrait of Charles Baudelaire,
1863.

Nadar
1820 - 1910

Nadar. Self-Portrait. c.
1855. Salted paperprint.

Gaspard Felix Tournachon

"Tourne a dard" = one
who stings

Nadar's
aim in portraiture was to find "that instant of understanding that
puts you in touch with the model - helps you sum him up, guides you to
his habits, his ideas, and character and enables you to produce a really
convincing and sympathetic likeness, an intimate portrait." - A
World History of Photography

Nadar, Sarah Bernhardt,
1865. Albumen.

Nadar, Sarah
Bernhardt, 1865. Albumen print.

Napoleon
Sarony, Sarah Bernhardt, c. 1880. Albumen print.

Nadar, Marie Laurent, 1856.

Nadar, Charles Deburau as Pierrot, 1854.

Nadar considered himself a "daredevil, always on the lookout for currents to swim against."

Nadar "elevating photography to the condition of art", 1862, Honoré Daunier. This caricature appeared in Le Boulevard on 25 May, 1862.

Nadar, Arc de Triumph and
the Grand Boulevards, Paris, from a Baloon, 1868.